On DACA and Health-Care Workers, Stick to the Facts

DACA workers are vital to the fight against the Wuhan coronavirus, according to an analysis by the open-borders Center for American Progress (CAP). The Washington Post and The Guardian amplified CAP’s claim, while the New York Times published an op-ed by lawyers in the health-care field citing the study to claim in that [t]he administration is preparing to deport DACA recipients” and that this would greatly impact the fight against the current pandemic because DACA recipients are “front-line medical” workers who are desperately needed right now.

The reality is that DACA recipients are a trivial fraction of health-care workers. Equally important, unless they commit a serious crime, the chance that any of them will actually be deported any time soon is minuscule, whatever the Supreme Court decides in June regarding the president’s ability to discontinue the program. What to do with DACA recipients once the program ends is a fair question, but we should not allow opponents of enforcement to use the current crisis as a pretext to advance their goals.

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The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization founded in 1985. It is the nation's only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States.